Modern electronic systems such as, for example, aircraft systems, perform diagnostic tests on most aspects of their operation. These tests are often performed at very high periodic rates resulting in the amount of data gathered far exceeding the capacity to either store all of the data locally or communicate the data locally or remotely. Often times only a subset of the captured information is of interest, and there is a desire to capture a longer or more frequent snapshot of the data of interest.
When, for example, a fault occurs, the system is often returned in order to diagnose and fix whatever caused the fault. In many cases, a fault is dependent upon several conditions at the time of the incident. The fault may also be intermittent, and only fail occasionally due to marginal characteristics. To determine the cause of the fault, the fault must first be reproduced in order to make appropriate measurements and isolate the issue. On intermittent or conditional dependent faults, it is very difficult to reproduce the issue without adequate data relating to the fault. Improved analysis is possible by capturing various data elements and/or sequences of analog samples to allow a limited reconstruction of the context of the situation at the time the fault was detected.